1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure and method for connecting a flexible printed circuit board to an inkjet print head in an inkjet recording device.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventional inkjet recording devices perform color printing using four ink cartridges for colors of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, for example. A holder for accommodating and holding these ink cartridges is provided with: four inkjet heads for ejecting each color of ink, and circuit boards for driving these inkjet heads. These inkjet heads and circuit boards are connected via flexible circuit boards to form a print head unit. Ink is supplied from the ink cartridges to the inkjet heads, and images are recorded by ejecting ink through ejection nozzles.
As the density of these ejection nozzles has increased along with improvements in recording quality of recent years, the terminals of these inkjet heads and the lands of the flexible printed circuit board connected to these terminals have also increase their density. When the terminals are joined to the lands using solder, Japanese patent publication No. 7-50498 discloses that the lands are staggered in order to ensure sufficient separation between individual lands on this limited surface area so that solder bridges are not formed between adjacent solder connections. As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,609, a thin layer of solder is formed on each land and the lands are bonded with terminals by heating the solder while the terminals are positioned over the lands.